The present invention relates to a mechanism for feeding calves, cattle, or similar domesticated animals, especially young animals, with liquid feed that can be withdrawn from a supply unit, especially an automatic wetting or soaking unit, and can be supplied to a suction unit via a conduit or the like.
With mechanisms of this general type, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,685, Forster dated Nov. 5, 1985, which belongs to the inventor of the present application, the suction lines, which are required between a central supply unit or an automatic soaking unit and the suction units, are often long, so that the animals, in order to draw off the feed, must suck very hard in order to overcome the resistance to flow. In doing so, especially young animals sometimes become tired already after a short period of time. Thus, these animals often don't get enough to eat, which adversely affects their growth. Furthermore, it is difficult to clean the conduits because they have to be removed from the suction unit in order to be able to empty them and rinse them with a cleaning material.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve a mechanism of the aforementioned general type in such a way that the resistance to flow of a conduit, which connects the suction unit, for example, with an automatic soaking unit, can nearly be compensated for independently of the length of the conduit, so that animals have only to suck slightly and uniformly in order to draw off feed. Thus, it is easier for the animals to withdraw feed. Furthermore, handling during cleaning of the suction lines and when putting the mechanism into operation should be simplified.